Knowing and understanding the best SMITE 2 Ares builds is essential if you want to master this aggressive support god. Ares is infamous for his ultimate, which can grapple multiple gods in the vicinity simultaneously, pulling them together and leaving them vulnerable for an ally to swoop in and deal the finishing blows for impressive multikills. The God of War is by no means easy to play, though, and his passive has completely changed from the first game, so there's a lot to learn. If you’re new to the game, we'd recommend reading our top SMITE 2 tips too for some guidance on general play and to get a handle on what’s changed.

This Ares guide covers everything to do with the God of War: abilities, builds, roles, strategy, tips, and more, all sourced from our excellent community of SMITE veterans, with thousands of hours in the first game, who are now running rampant in SMITE 2. Here are the best SMITE 2 Ares builds:

Ares abilities explained

Before we jump into the builds, we need to explain how all of Ares's abilities work. Here's Sadger - who levelled Ares up to ten in the first game and is also maining him in SMITE 2 - with a detailed breakdown:

• Blessed Armaments (passive): This is the biggest buff to Ares from SMITE 1 to 2. Blessed Armaments grants strength and intelligence in an aura around him, with the amount of strength based on how many protections from items you have, whereas the intelligence boost relies on how much cooldown you have. The most important thing is that the strength buff scales well, so even if your abilities are down, stay near your teammates to still make yourself useful.

• Shackles (first): Sadger says this ability is "the best in Ares’s kit" now. It fires a chain at an enemy god, and if it hits, it deals high damage, slows your target, grants you a movement speed buff, and cripples your target so they cannot use movement abilities to escape. If you connect with the first, you can fire up to two more shackles at once. If there are no other enemies in the vicinity, these two extra shackles can be used on the same target to deal maximum damage.

• Call to Arms (second): Call to Arms is a fairly simple AoE buff that you should be using on both yourself and allies before engaging with the enemy. It increases protections and auto-attack damage, and if you deal damage to an enemy god three times with Call to Arms active, it extends the duration.

• Searing Flames (third): This is basically a flamethrower. Flames spew out of Ares's shield, dealing damage in a cone, but it's important to note that this is channelled, which means you're unable to perform most other actions while using it, though you can still fire Shackles, and are also immune to displacement. It's very useful when clearing minion waves or when you're fighting multiple gods simultaneously, otherwise keep it primed for the displacement immunity if you know an enemy god with crowd control abilities is nearby.

• No Escape (ultimate): Finally, we have the ability Ares is known for: No Escape. Upon use, any enemy gods in a large radius around Ares himself will be grappled, then pulled towards Ares's location. However, any god that is displacement-immune cannot be pulled in, so if there's an Ares mirror match, Searing Flames is an excellent counter. Anubis, Bacchus, Fenrir, and Loki are other examples of gods that can do this with the right ability. If you pull all of the targeted enemies successfully, you should move towards your teammates so they can contribute with additional damage, but if any of your targets are displacement-immune, you should move towards them so the stun part of No Escape connects successfully.

If you want all of the above information in video form, Cloggedbean has a two-minute long TikTok video that breaks down all of the abilities and how Ares's kit differs from SMITE 1:

We also have ChrisTDickson who has gone into more depth, showing examples of each ability in action while dissecting exactly what it takes to master Ares:

Best Ares roles

Ares is best suited to the support role, and DiscoFerry explains they're particularly focused on "early-game lane pressure, early kills, and looking for ultimates on enemies without beads or crowd-control-immune abilities in the late game." Sadger explains they're essentially an "aggressive guardian" that uses his "high damage and buffing abilities to support his team by killing enemies rather than locking them down".

LightRoast also suggests Ares can be used in the solo lane "with a coordinated team composition". However, the importance of that team composition cannot be overstated; if you're not playing with a team in full communication, stick to support as Ares.

Best Ares support build

Our SMITE 2 Ares support build comes courtesy of both Elech and Sadger, who explain this build focuses on "cooldown reduction and aura items".

Relic:

• Blink Rune

  • Ares struggles with mobility, so Blink Rune allows you to engage - and disengage - in combat with ease.

Consumables:

• 2x Health Potions

  • Essential to help you stay alive.

• Health Chalice

  • Rechargeable healing whenever you return to base.

Items:

• Selflessness (starter)

  • The best all-round starter item for Ares. It grants you eight bonus gold - and you restore eight health and five mana - for every enemy minion or jungle monster assist, and any allied god within 8.8m of Ares is hit with a crowd control effect, they're granted a shield equal to 10% of your maximum health.

• Gauntlet of Thebes (defensive)

  • Useful for team defence and to increase Ares's power. Provides physical and magical protection stacks for getting minion assists, plus god kills and assists, up to 30 times.

• Prophetic Cloak (defensive)

  • Provides high protections and even more survivability than Thebes once fully stacked. It grants immediate protections and allows you to begin stacking it by dealing damage to enemy gods as early in the game as possible.

• Shogun's Ofuda (defensive)

  • Increases the attack speed of any nearby allies by 20% alongside some health and magical protection bonuses for Ares.

• Glorious Pridwen (defensive)

  • Offers cooldown reduction and physical/magical protections, plus an active ability that creates an explosion "dealing 55% of your protections as magical damage and slows targets by 25% for 3s. Then you gain a shield equal to 80% of your protections for 5s. When destroyed, you explode again."

There are multiple choices for the final item depending on who you're up against:

• Spectral Armor (defensive)

  • If you're facing a lot of crit, take this to reduce the chance of enemies landing critical strikes and their attack speed by 20%.

• Void Stone (hybrid)

  • If you're against magical damage, the Void Stone grants you more power and lowers your foes' magical protections.

• Spirit Robe (defensive)

  • This is when you simply need more defence. Spirit Robe offers 30 physical and magical protection, and grants even more when you're hit by a hard crowd-control effect.

Sadger has also suggested some other items to consider, which can be swapped in for any of the above if they offer more benefits in your circumstance: 

• Oni Hunter's Garb (defensive)

  • Provides magical protection, health, mana and a passive effect that greatly increases your survivability, since you will usually be in close proximity to enemy gods.

• Breastplate of Valor (defensive)

  • A good physical protection item that provides mana and cooldown reduction, which is always helpful and supports his intelligence aura.

• Genji's Guard (defensive)

  • Breastplate’s magical counterpart, providing magical protections and strong cooldown reduction. It does not provide mana.

• Mystical Mail (defensive)

  • Provides a whopping 350 maximum health on top of 40 physical protections, while also providing a passive that further increases your damage potential.

• Amanita Charm (defensive)

  • Reasonable protections backed up by a strong active effect that can heal your team during a teamfight or objective.

• Ruinous Ankh (defensive)

  • Most gods build lifesteal or have some form of healing in their kit, which means anti-heal is almost always useful. The item also provides good stats.

• Talisman of Purification (defensive)

  • A powerful active item that can protect your team from teamfight swinging crowd control abilities or ultimates. This item requires skill, timing and awareness to use effectively.

Best Ares solo build

While Ares is most popular in the support role, CashMoneyMorty has created a video guide that details one of the best solo builds for him (along with a support build too at the start of the video, which includes Eye of Providence and Triton's Conch, so differs slightly from the option above).

The full list of items is below:

• Mystical Mail

• Wish-Granting Pearl

• Breastplate of Valor

• Ruinous Ankh

• Shifter's Shield

• Phoenix Feather

Ares tips

What about everything that doesn't come under the above categories? Our community of SMITE veterans submitted plenty of extra tips all about how to play Ares in SMITE 2:

Elech explains that if you're going to choose Ares in ranked play, you shouldn't choose him right at the beginning or your opponents will pick gods that have displacement-immune abilities. Wait to pick Ares or do so if you can otherwise be sure you'll be facing gods without much immunity.

They also recommend using the Blink Rune while you use your ultimate, No Escape. This is because you can pull all the enemies towards your teammates much more efficiently than just running, as the Blink Rune is Ares's most flexible mobility option.

Sadger suggests that if you don't want to run with the Blink Rune relic, Sundering Arc - as even post-nerf, it's still one of the best in the game - is the other option to choose. It allows you to deal much more damage to jungle monsters and bosses, along with a little extra damage to enemy gods.

LightRoast explains that Ares is a solid choice for objectives and that you should "look to tank them for your team and communicate to your team to attack both Gold Fury and Queen Naga."

Inpunktion reveals that Ares's "biggest strength is that he can cause a lot of panic when chaining multiple enemies who rely on movement abilities," as it puts pressure on the enemy team to "stand their ground and fight rather than try to flee from a speedy Ares," thanks to the movement speed buffs.

If you want to go for an auto-build, JHenckes recommends the Active Support option: "It's the best build, since it's going to guarantee that you dominate the duo lane at the start of the game. As Ares is a support character, this build is the one that will most enhance his ADC support role."

That's everything you need to know about how to master Ares, the god of war, in SMITE 2. Do you have any additional tips? Which god do you want to see us create a guide for next? Have you been succeeding with Ares after following these builds? Let us know in the comments below, and make sure you check out our guide to the best SMITE 2 Mordred builds too.

Some text has been edited for brevity, clarity, or spelling, punctuation, and grammar. You can find the original wording here. Image credit: Titan Forge Games